News Archive - 2017

John Saunders reports: The prizegiving for the 2017 Chess.com Isle of Man tournament was held in the Villa Marina on Sunday 1 October at 9pm. Guest of honour was the tournament sponsor Isai Scheinberg who made the presentation of the Masters trophy and cheque for £50,000 to the winner of the open section, Magnus Carlsen.

John Saunders reports: Magnus Carlsen strengthened his lead by beating Fabiano Caruana in round eight of the 2017 Chess.com Isle of Man Masters, played at the Villa Marina, Douglas, on 30 September. This took the Norwegian world champion to a score of 7/8. His only remaining challenger now is Hikaru Nakamura of the USA, who beat Emil Sutovsky of Israel to reach a score of 6½. In the final round on Sunday Magnus Carlsen will have the advantage of the white pieces, but a win for the American could still see him snatch the first prize of £50,000.

John Saunders reports: Round six of the 2017 Chess.com Isle of Man Masters, played at the Villa Marina, Douglas, on 28 September, saw world champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway move clear of the field with a stellar win against last year's winner Pavel Eljanov. At the end of the round the leading scores are Carlsen 5½ from a possible 6, while Santosh Gujrathi Vidit of India, who beat his compatriot Bharathakoti Harsha, is on 5 and the only player within half a point of the leader. On 4½ are 18 others players, including Fabiano Caruana, Viswanathan Anand and Hikaru Nakamura, the third, fourth and fifth seeds.

After the dust had settled on Round five of the 2017 Chess.com Isle of Man Masters, played at the Villa Marina on 27 September, two joint leaders emerged from the smoke. One was world champion Magnus Carlsen, who beat Julio Granda Zuñiga of Peru, and the second was world ranked no.27 Pavel Eljanov of Ukraine, who defeated Rustam Kasimdzhanov of Uzbekistan. Carlsen and Eljanov are tied on 4½/5, with a further 11 players on 4 points.

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John Saunders reports: the 2018 Chess.com Isle of Man International was won by Radoslaw Wojtaszek of Poland after a play-off match with Arkadij Naiditsch of Azerbaijan. The two players led going into the last round and drew their ninth round game to finish on 7/9 while none of the four players on 6/8 managed to win in order to tie with them. They each take home a cheque for £37,500 with Wojtaszek also receiving a further £500 for winning the blitz play-off. The initial two-game blitz was tied on 1-1 but Wojtaszek chose White in the Armageddon game and duly won. Seven players finished on 6½: Vladimir Kramnik, Alexander Grischuk (both Russia), Hikaru Nakamura, Jeffery Xiong (both USA), Wang Hao (China), Gawain Jones (England) and Baskaran Adhiban (India).

John Saunders reports: another pulsating day’s chess saw four 2700+ rated players bite the dust, all bar one beaten by players less highly rated than themselves, and in one case more than 200 points adrift. Two leaders emerge from the smoke of battle, Arkadij Naiditsch (Azerbaijan) and Radoslaw Wojtaszek (Poland), who now both have 6½/8, while four more players are half a point behind them and are still in with a chance of a share in the top prize – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France), Wang Hao (China), Gawain Jones (England) and Jeffery Xiong (USA).

John Saunders reports: another remarkable round at the Villa Marina saw the number of leaders increase by one – the same names as per the round six leader board, plus England’s perennial numero uno, Mickey Adams. There was some fantastic chess played, which it gives me great pleasure to report upon. Before we move on, let’s just record the seven leaders’ names for the record: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France), Hikaru Nakamura (USA), Radoslaw Wojtaszek (Poland), Wang Hao (China), Arkadij Naiditsch (Azerbaijan), Mickey Adams (England) and Jeffery Xiong (USA) all have 5½ out of 7.